"I shall see you to-morrow morning," she said; but he
replied with a smile that he would certainly find time to
come to her for a moment on his way back from meeting the
Ambassador; and when he had put her in a cab he leaned
through the window to press his lips to hers.
She blushed like a girl, thinking, half vexed, half happy:
"Yesterday he would not have done it..." and a dozen
scarcely definable differences in his look and manner seemed
all at once to be summed up in the boyish act. "After all,
I'm engaged to him," she reflected, and then smiled at the
absurdity of the word. The next instant, with a pang of
self-reproach, she remembered Sophy Viner's cry: "I knew all
the while he didn't care..." "Poor thing, oh poor thing!"
Anna murmured...
At Owen's hotel she waited in a tremor while the porter went
in search of him. Word was presently brought back that he
was in his room and begged her to come up, and as she
crossed the hall she caught sight of his portmanteaux lying
on the floor, already labelled for departure.
Owen sat at a table writing, his back to the door; and when
he stood up the window was behind him, so that, in the rainy
afternoon light, his features were barely discernible.
"Dearest--so you're really off?" she said, hesitating a
moment on the threshold.
He pushed a chair forward, and they sat down, each waiting
for the other to speak.
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